California serial killer Wesley Shermantine, who along with his childhood friend terrorized the Central Valley throughout the 1980s and ’90s, has died in prison, authorities said.
Shermantine was one-half of the notorious “Speed Freak Killers.” The moniker referred to the duo’s methamphetamine-fueled killing rampages, which investigators believed claimed the lives of anywhere from a dozen to 72 victims over a span of about 15 years, The Timesreported.
Shermantine died on Sept. 17 at the California State Prison in Sacramento while on death row, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Friday. He was 60. Gov. Gavin Newsom placed a moratorium on executions in 2019.
The Sacramento County coroner’s office was expected to determine the cause of death. The office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shermantine’s childhood friend Loren Herzog, the other half of the “Speed Freak” duo, died by suicide in 2012.
Herzog was paroled in 2010, after serving 14 years on a plea deal, and killed himself shortly after learning that Shermantine planned to reveal where they’d dumped the bodies of their victims.
Then at San Quentin, Shermantine made a deal with a bounty hunter to provide directions to the remains. In return, he’d get comforts for his death row cell, including a television, as well as $33,000 to pay off a restitution order and purchase headstones for his parents’ graves, The Times reported.
The pair grew up as neighbors in Linden, a small rural community in San Joaquin County. As children, they started out killing animals before later moving on to hunting people, according to investigators. They passed time by exploring abandoned mines and wells and looking for spots to hide bodies.
When Shermantine spilled his secrets in 2012, authorities followed crude maps he created in his cell to an area he labeled as “Loren’s Boneyard.” There, they dug up bones, skull fragments and teeth belonging to multiple victims.
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